Apprentice

A Spell for Kia #3

by J.P. Larson

Kia is now sixteen and still struggling to learn her magic. With Eva's help, she has a breakthrough, but not everything is settled.

Sevenday is also a struggle for her, and at the same time, she has her first kiss.

This is the third in the Spell for Kia novels.

Genres: Lesbian, Fantasy

267 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2015

Reviews

[Qwerttaste · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are just too many things that doesn't make sense and the protagonist is entirely too forgiving, a doormat and quite frankly not acting like a human.

Ignoring the smaller issues:
For instance Kia was promoted to apprentice and thus has to take part at the sevenday games which now include using magic against fellow sorceresses. After her first participation her teammates are ordered not to help her and probably wait till she's out. When that was brought up in a argument between Quartain and Kia the answer was in order to push her. Push her to what? Boredom? Create a rift between her and her fellow apprentice? I don't know and since the revelation took place in an even more emotional and traumatic event for Kia i guess the reader should just forget about it.

The traumatic event i am speaking about is her treatment/torture in order to become a better sorceress in less time. From what we are told it's working.
Now to the treatment:
When Kia was called for the meeting with some of the senior magi, to some of them she looked up with a lot of affection and one of them she sees as a surrogate mother, and the queen, with whom she got quite cozy, Kia expected that they want to burn out her magic. After a long rant from Kia they start with the treatment and explain not a thing to her, but that it is extremely painful. That's not heavily damaging for Kia on a psychical level or at least damaging to the relationship with the queen and the senior magi. Nope, the very next day, after she begged for death, they made up and one of the senior magi explains to her that she had a dream about it and since it is for the greater good it's alright. They weren't done after the two sessions (they had session before they made up, right cause anyone can think rational after that), so Kia volunteered for some more.

The dream business: Some of the sorceresses can look in possible futures and manipulate them, but when they manipulate others in order to accomplish a favourable future they can't explain why the others are manipulated otherwise bad things happen. On the other hand if the one who should be manipulated refuses to act in the way the dreaming sorceress wants him to act bad things happen to him/her because the gods hate him/her from now on. Evil to him who evil thinks.

The burning out magic business: Every sorceress has to attend school, every sorceress who aces the apprentice test has to make a contract with the queen or their magic will be burned out (well they don't know that their magic will be burned out). Basically the queen owns every single sorceress of any significant power for eight years. The burning out is possibly fatal (and even if the sorceresses do not die, they are smaller and weaker than the rest, true they have a good education, but i can't see how most of them will be able to support themselves). I don't think that goes together with Kia's moral values and since Kia isn't one to remain silent it strikes me as odd that she hasn't brought it up with her surrogate mother or the queen.

[Root and The Machine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this has been an absolute delight.This book is so much better than what I have been reading before.I really love it.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about emotional blackmail and child abuse for the greater good.

[Sean Franco-Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book kept getting better as it continued through the series. This time, the novel was much brutal for me to read. Kia was tortured unintentionally. I was struggled to see why it was necessary to rush her to become Apprentice until it was explained. I actually understood why, but thought it was unnecessary to do it without explaining the situation to Kia first. Seeing how suffered she had gone through was terrible.

Out of all that, she finally had her first kiss with a certain person I thought it was odd. I didn't think they were the right match. Kia also had a lot of heartbroken moment in the novel. She was lead on by a girl she thought they shared a mutual feeling, but only to find out that the other lady changed her mind since she was required to mate with a man to bear a child. Kia's first love was shattered into pieces. It was painful to read that scene.

The book ended on a wonderful note. She got to travel and continued practice one of her favorite magic, which was plant magic. I loved reading her enthusiastic when it came to plants.

Highly recommended!